Walk the Wire
Page 23
“How do you think I feel? So?”
“Nothing to really say about it other than what I already did. Dan was different when we dated. He was all things I liked. After we said our vows and started living together, he became all things I disliked. And maybe I became that way to him. Though I don’t think I ever really changed.”
“Amicable split?”
“We were both too young and I was too naïve. Way too naïve. He . . . he took advantage of that, at least thinking back I see that.”
“Where is he now?”
She shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.” She glanced at him again with an annoyed look that she finished off with a warm smile. “Right now, I think I liked it better when you had no interest at all in personal matters.”
He held up his hands in mock surrender and then stared out the window. “When I woke up from my coma in the hospital after getting wrecked on that football field, I thought everything was normal. I thought I was still normal. Until it happened.”
“What happened?”
“You know the little monitor on the stand they have to record your vitals?”
“Yeah.”
“When I looked at the numbers there, I was seeing them in all sorts of different colors. At first, I just thought my vision was still funky, or maybe I was just out of sorts. You have to understand that I still didn’t know what had happened to me. But later, when I looked at the clock on the wall, same thing—weird-ass colors. Then I knew I was definitely not the same. And when I had to interact with people, well, it was a brave new world. I’m sure the doctors and nurses were glad to be rid of me. I was a royal pain in the ass. I was somebody else but only in the same body. My way of coping was just to . . . not cope. Just move on as though I’d always been that way.”
“But you seem to understand it a lot better than when we first met. Back then you were really aloof, and impossible to read. And you had absolutely no—”
She stopped and looked nervous.
He glanced at her. “No filter? You’re right. And I’m not that much better now.”
“You don’t walk out of rooms while people are still talking to you nearly as much as you used to,” she said encouragingly.
“I guess progress is measured in baby steps.”
“I know we’ve talked about this before, but what is it really like not to forget anything?”
“My personal cloud, you mean?” he said, tapping his temple. “It’s probably a lot like your memory, only mine’s a little more neatly organized and a lot more accessible than yours. You have it all up there, too, but some memories are so crowded out by others that you can’t reach them anymore. I don’t have that problem.”
“A blessing, and a curse.”
“It is if you have something you’d rather forget, which most of us do.”
“I know it’s hard, Decker.”
He stared out the window at an endless sky, which, to him right now, seemed as big as his personal memory. “Life is hard for everybody, Alex. Anybody who says otherwise has just decided to ignore all the shit that comes with waking up every day and walking out the door.”
She said, “So your way of coping is focusing entirely on your work?”
Decker glanced at her, his features inscrutable. “My way of coping is just finding the truth, Alex. If I can do that, then I can deal with everything else.”
THE FARM LOOKED LIKE something out of The Grapes of Wrath, only with less dust and a modicum of water sources.
They pulled to a stop in front of the plank-sided house and got out. There was a dirty and ancient Jeep two-door parked in the front. They could see a barn in the distance, and corrals full of cows collected around a water trough and salt lick. There was also a paddock where some bow-backed horses nibbled grass. The overall operation looked neat and efficient.
The leaning mailbox at the end of the dirt road had said PURDY, so they knew they were in the right place.
Before they could reach the front steps, the screen door opened and a woman stood there, a Remington over-under shotgun in hand. She was in her midfifties, with long gray hair, a slender, wiry build, and a pair of piercing blue eyes. She had on faded dungarees, weathered boots, and a checkered shirt tucked into the pants. The belt holding them up was made of knotted leather. Her face was wrinkled and tanned. And full of suspicion.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
Jamison immediately took out her FBI creds and badge.
“FBI Special Agent Alex Jamison. My partner, Amos Decker. Are you Beverly Purdy?”
Instead of de-escalating the situation, this only caused the woman to raise the gun and point it directly at them, her finger near the trigger. “What the hell do you want? You tell me right now.”
Decker stepped forward, putting himself between Jamison and the gun. “We wanted to talk to Ben, if he’s here.”
She snapped. “He’s not. But why do you want to talk to him?”
“We’re not with the Air Force, if that’s what you’re thinking. And we have no interest in whether he might be absent without leave. We just want to talk to him about his last posting, in London, North Dakota.”
“Bullshit. You’ve come to arrest him.”
“Why would we do that?”
“You just said. AWOL.”
“We’re investigating a series of murders in London.”
“Ben didn’t kill nobody.”
“We’re not suggesting he did. He was long gone before the killings took place. But he said something to someone back in London. We just wanted to ask him what he meant by that. We believe it might have ties to our investigation.”
The woman slowly lowered the weapon. “He’s not here, like I said.”
“Was he here at some point?”
“He might’a been,” she said guardedly.
“Do you know where we could find him?”
She shook her head. “Got no idea. Haven’t heard from him in a while.”
“And so you must be worried?” said Jamison, coming to stand next to Decker.
“I’m his ma, ’course I’m worried.”
“Well, we’re worried about him too, so maybe together we can find him.”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“I get that you’re suspicious, Mrs. Purdy. So just to show our good faith, we’ll leave now. But can I give you our contact information so he could call us if you do see him? All we want to do is talk to him, not arrest him. That’s all.” He pulled a card from his jacket pocket and held it out to her.
She looked at the paper warily, as though if she touched it she might feel pain. But, apparently now satisfied that they were not here to arrest her son, Purdy said, “Look, do you all want to come in? I just made some fresh coffee.”
Decker glanced at Jamison and said, “Sounds good. It was a long drive. And it’s colder here than it was in North Dakota.”
They followed her inside. The front room was dominated by heads of animals mounted on the wall.
Purdy caught Jamison gawking and said, “My husband and Ben were avid hunters. Most everybody in these parts are. But it’s not just for show. We eat what we shoot.”
She led them into a small, plain kitchen with pine cupboards and dark, swirl-patterned, laminated countertops. The floor was aged linoleum and the furnishings rustic. The curtains around the windows looked to be about fifty years old. The whole place seemed locked in time from around then.
She set the Remington in a gun rack on the wall and pointed to two chairs around the table. “Take a seat.”
They sat while she got the coffee and cups together.
After she poured and handed out their drinks, she joined them at the table. She moved a stray hair out of her eyes and sipped her coffee, not meeting their curious gazes.
“We understand you live here alone?” said Decker.
The blue eyes flashed. “Who told you that? You been spying on me?” Her gaze darted to the shotgun. “What do you want? You tell me now.”
“We alre
ady told you,” replied Decker calmly. “To talk to your son.”
“That’s what you said,” she retorted in a skeptical tone. “Doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“It is true,” said Jamison. “We just want to talk to him. We are not here to arrest him. That is not our concern. We have no jurisdiction over his military career.”
“Feds are Feds,” Purdy snapped.
“It may seem like it, but it doesn’t actually work that way, at least not in our case,” said Decker.
She finally calmed and said, “My husband died three years ago. I was hoping Ben would come back here and help me run the place. But that didn’t happen.”
Decker said, “You told us he might’ve been here. Was he here? Did he talk to you about what might have happened back there, that caused him to leave the way he did?”
Purdy fingered her coffee cup. “They . . . they moved everybody from that place. Meaning the Air Force, Ben, and the others.”
“Right, a private security firm named Vector came in to run the facility,” said Jamison.
“Don’t know about that.”
“What did he do there?” asked Decker.
“Technical stuff. Computers and the like.” She snapped her fingers. “Radar, I think he said. But not anymore, I guess.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Jamison.
“Like I just said, they reassigned Ben and the others. I guess there’s nobody left to do the radar and such. He trained for it, you know. He was good at his job. Real smart. Always has been.”
“So he was upset about being transferred out?” asked Decker.
“Yeah.”
“But surely he’d been reassigned before. I mean, you go where the military tells you to.”
Purdy looked confused by this. “Well, that’s right. He was in Nebraska for a while, then Colorado. Then he got transferred to North Dakota. So that’s right.”
“He never got upset about those transfers?” said Decker.
“No.”
“But he did this time?”
“He . . . he called me one night, over a year ago. He said, ‘Ma, they’re moving us out. We’re going to the East Coast somewhere.’ I forget where he said, and then they were being reassigned to Colorado, I think. Least he was.”
“But he didn’t go?” said Decker.
She looked up at him nervously. “You sure you’re not here to get him in trouble?”
“I give you my word. Did he ever say anything to you that showed he was troubled by something?”
“Not in so many words, no, but I could tell something was bothering him. When he would call, he didn’t sound like himself.”
“Did he know about the changes taking place at the installation?”
“No, he never mentioned anything like that to me.”
“Did he ever mention a Colonel Mark Sumter?”
“No.”
“Has he been back here since then?” asked Jamison.
“Once,” she said, looking down at her long, weathered fingers. “About ten months ago. He’d lost weight, wouldn’t meet my eye. I asked what was wrong. But all he said was he couldn’t tell me without maybe getting me in trouble.”
“Was he in uniform?”
“No, he didn’t always come home dressed up. But he only had a backpack with him. Not big enough for his uniforms and all. I asked him where he was stationed. ‘Out in Colorado?’ I asked. But he just changed the subject. He said if anybody came looking for him, to just say I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him.”
Decker said, “And did people come looking for him?”
She nodded. “The Air Force. Three times. Said he was AWOL. In a lot of trouble. When Ben come here that one time it was late at night, and he didn’t stay long. He left the next morning at the crack of dawn. I told him about the Air Force folks. He said not to worry. I haven’t seen him since,” she added gravely, her voice breaking.
“Did anyone else ever come looking for him, besides the Air Force?” said Jamison.
Purdy took another sip of coffee before answering. “No, just them. Nobody else.”
Jamison asked, “Did he have any close friends in North Dakota? Anyone he served with that he might have mentioned?”
“Not that he said, no.”
“Did he ever mention anyone named Irene Cramer?” asked Decker.
Purdy thought about this but then shook her head. “Not that I recall, no. Who is she?”
“One of the people who was killed.”
Purdy shook her head. “I worry myself sick that Ben’s dead, too. He’s never gone this long without calling me. What do you all think is going on at that place?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” said Decker. “Does Ben have a room here?”
“In the back.”
“Is that where he slept the last time he was here?”
“Yes.”
“Do you mind if we have a look?”
She rose and led them down the hall.
IT WAS THE FADED ROOM of a teenager from years ago. Old movie and music posters. Pictures of athletes from fifteen years past. A small gunmetal desk with a dusty PlayStation console and a pair of headphones. Some dog-eared Stephen King and Dean Koontz novels along with books of a technical nature were lined up on a small bookshelf. The bed was a twin and neatly made. The carpet was old and stained.
Decker and Jamison stood in the center of the small space and looked around, while Purdy remained in the doorway blinking away tears.
“I come in here sometimes and sit on his bed,” she said, staring at it. “He’s thirty now. Enlisted right out of high school. Time goes by so fast. Hard to believe. Seems like I just came home from the hospital with him.”
“Did he have a computer?” asked Jamison.
“One of them laptops. But he took that with him. We don’t get real good whatever-it’s-called, out here.”
“Internet connection? Broadband?” said Jamison.
“Yeah. He would always complain about that. But what can you do? Couldn’t up and move the dang farm.”
Decker opened the closet door and peered inside it. There were a few clothes on hangers. He went through the pockets. On the floor was a cardboard box. He pulled it out and set it on the bed. Inside were some books, magazines, and some loose printed pages. Decker looked at the books and magazines and ran his gaze over the pages. The books and magazines all dealt with technical subjects, mostly having to do with electronic communication applications. The loose pages were about various military installations in Maryland, Colorado, Arkansas, and California. Decker held them up. “Any idea why he was interested in these places?”
Purdy came forward and took the pages from him. “I don’t know. Maybe he was thinking about asking for a transfer there.”
“But they’re not all Air Force installations.”
Jamison said, “Or they could be from when he was thinking about enlisting years ago. He might not have settled on a service branch yet.”
“No,” said Decker, shaking his head. “There’s a time stamp at the bottom right of the page. It shows when it was printed out.”
Jamison looked at the dates. “About a year ago,” she said, giving him a confused look.
“You mind if we take these?” he asked Purdy.
“No, help yourself.”
They went back into the kitchen.
Purdy said, “Do you think I’ll see my son again?”
“I wish I could give you a straight answer on that, ma’am. I can tell you that we’ll do all in our power to find him.”
She put a hand on Decker’s arm. “Thank you for that.”
They took their leave and drove off, with Purdy in the doorway of the little house staring forlornly after them.
“I can’t imagine what she’s going through,” said Jamison. “Her only kid is missing and obviously involved in some dangerous things.”
Decker wasn’t listening. He was staring down at the pages he had taken, lost in thought.
Decker looked in the side mirror and sat up straighter.
“Brace, Alex,” he called out, right as the front of the vehicle trailing them plowed into the rear of theirs.
The collision slammed both of them back against their seats, momentarily stunning them.
Then Jamison went into action. She floored the gas, and the SUV leapt forward.
“Can you see anything?” she called out.
Decker turned around and looked at the headlights a few feet behind them. “Yeah, and here they come again.”
They were bucked forward once more with a second collision. Jamison was having to struggle mightily just to keep the truck on the road.
She said, “They have more horsepower than we do. I’ve got the pedal to the floor.”
“Well, let’s see if we can do something about that.”
Decker undid his seat harness, climbed over the seats, and settled in the cargo area at the back. “Pop the window,” he called out as he slid his Glock from its belt holster.
Jamison did so and Decker edged the glass further up.
He used the back of the cargo door as his fulcrum, aimed, and fired five shots into the driver’s side of the windshield.
The vehicle immediately started to veer erratically to the left and right.
“Think I hit the driver,” he yelled out. As he said this he ducked down. “Look out, Alex!”
Their SUV was strafed with machine-gun fire.
She bent low, cut the wheel hard to the left, and shot onto the wrong side of the road.
“Decker, Decker, you okay? Decker.”
She glanced frantically in the rearview mirror. “Amos!”
His head poked up into view. “Okay, that was a little closer than I would have liked.”
Their SUV started wobbling badly and Jamison said, “They hit our tires. I can’t hold this speed.”
Decker looked to the right. “Road coming up. Take it.”
Jamison left rubber on the road as she drilled a ninety-degree turn onto another ribbon of asphalt heading south. She eased up on the gas because the SUV was fishtailing so badly. “They must have shredded our rear tires. Feels like we’re riding on the rims.”